


we are shining (and we'll never be afraid again)

by lady_laverty



Series: death is a note left unsaid (I love you) [1]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, BBC made me do it, F/M, Joanne is emotionally constipated, Romance, Rule 63, Sherlock just wants to solve cases, Solving crimes is fun, angst angst, this is my friend's fault seriously, what even is this
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-03-02
Updated: 2013-03-01
Packaged: 2017-12-04 01:04:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,457
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/704694
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lady_laverty/pseuds/lady_laverty
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>She loves him from that first meeting, that first dabble into the unexplored world of genuine perception of reality, but she knows, deep, deep inside of her that it will only end in heart break for her.</em>
</p><p> </p><p>Joanne Watson just wanted to go for a walk. Just wanted to escape the dark flat that she could only barely afford for a little while. What she didn't plan on was being introduced to Sherlock Holmes. </p><p> </p><p>Sherlock/Joanne</p>
            </blockquote>





	we are shining (and we'll never be afraid again)

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, so this is my first published fanfic, so take it easy. Constructive criticism is always accepted. 
> 
> You can blame my friends for this fic.

Joanne Hayley Watson was born breech on August 7th, 1982 to parents who didn’t wish for her existence. Lucky for her, her mother and father were devout Catholics (they’re dead now, gone to the God that they devoted so much of their time to) and thought abortions were a sin, lucky for her they had revolutionised caesarean sections to the point where they didn’t kill the mother whilst trying to save the unwitting child that was created within her womb. She was born breech with the umbilical cord wrapped around neck in some twisted parody of abortion, like the universe was trying right the mistake her parents made in not aborting her. (Her brother Harrison was the only one excited for her birth, genuinely excited, she’s told by him later whilst he was in a fit of rage her toddler mind couldn’t comprehend or understand. That he is the older brother and must look out for her, even though he did an amazingly shitty job at it. Even though he is the golden one, with golden hair so, so similar to her own and affection coming out of his ears like steam, he hugs her once or twice a week. Gives her a present of her birthday, the day she wrecked their parent’s lives.)

Her parents did not pay attention to the blonde haired daughter that they discarded to the side the moment she could walk, talk and use her hands in some semblance of control. Practically an adult, in their minds, she could look after herself. They feed her, clothe her but don’t even look at her. Doesn’t matter that the child spent her childhood trying to garner the praise her obviously gay and intelligent brother was imbued by simply _breathing_. She would have asked her grandparents, but all four of them are dead so there is no chance of any help from their decaying corpses.

She went to school every day, _every day_ , and absorbed all the knowledge the teachers bestowed upon the primary school children to the best of her abilities and slowly but surely created a hardened outer shell out of intelligent, cutting wit and anger that could never, ever be quenched. She graduated high school miles in front of her peers, but nowhere near genius levels, angry but assured that she would get out of the hell hole that she called her family home and become a doctor to help people, _hell_ , maybe even join the army if she was lucky.

St. Bart’s was a _nightmare_ , paying her own student debts, happy that she is doing something by herself, making something of herself with the loneliness of her parent’s disinterest looming over her existence. St. Bart’s is the place where she meets Mike Stamford, the naïve sweetheart that he is, tries to hit on her the moment she steps in the little bar across the street from the hospital.

_“Uh, hi, you look lonely…uh…can I buy you a drink?”_

It was the most pathetic pick up line she had ever heard (and she hasn’t heard many in her life), rolling her eyes to the sky and praying to a god she isn’t sure exists that she wouldn’t have to drag this pathetic, slightly overweight and honestly, most friendly person she has met in the entire medical school, around until she graduates as a doctor. She plasters a fake but harmless smile on her face and he smiles guilelessly back. He’s her only friend, though, because she has to work night shifts 6 days a week just to support herself on ramen noodles, which leads her to be admitted to St. Bart’s for malnutrition more times than she would like to admit, and pay off an increasing amount of student debt that is acquired when learning to be a fully-fledged doctor, which leaves absolutely no time for being social let alone holding a steady relationship with a guy.

(She knows for sure she isn’t gay or bi, men just appeal to her, especially if they have more than 10 brain cells in their head and think with their brains and not their dicks. She learns later, whilst reading, that this is called sapisoexuality and she is proud of it. The guy could be butt ugly for all she cared, if he has intelligence and wields it correctly, she’s all over him. For one nighters because she doesn’t have time for a relationship and she admits to herself that she is more than a tiny bit worried that they will dump her and leave, leave her like her parents did and she knows this isn’t healthy but she can’t help what has been ingrained in her since she was a toddler.)

She survives the 6 years of university and ends up dragging Mike around like he is a loyal puppy until she applies for Her Majesty’s Army and gets accepted and the farewell from Mike cracks her already close to shattering heart. She leaves him behind when there is a possibility that she might be in love with him. She leaves him behind for the camaraderie for a squad, but can never get over it. By the time she is deployed to Afghanistan she considers writing letters, anything, but she’s sure he’s moved on by now. Married a nice, normal woman and has a kid, the whole spiel. A year into her deployment and she realises she doesn’t even know where Mike would be now, so she writes her letters, but keeps them in her locker at the foot of her bunk. Her team mates laugh at her but know when enough is enough and to back off. She loves them all, some of them get hurt and she helps them with the skills she has worked so hard and lost so much for, but some of them die and she carries their smiles in her heart because if she didn’t she would be _nothing_.

Then The Accident happens and she’s thrown out of the life she has been living and breathing for years now. She spends 6 months rehabbing in Selly Oak and the injury is healed, but she still limps. (She’s Honourably Discharged, on medical grounds, with full veterans pay and no idea what to do with herself than terrorise he genuinely trying to help therapist and try and write a blog about her unexciting and uneventful life trying to reintegrate into civilian life.) She takes an innocent walk in the park and runs into Mike. Mike, of all the people in London to run into, it is him. She spots the ring on his finger and she suddenly knows that she did the right thing trying not to find him when she was deployed. She sits hesitantly beside him and he opens his mouth and words fly out like he hasn’t mastered a brain to mouth filter since they were young adults in university together.

_“I heard you were abroad somewhere getting shot at. What happened?”_

_“Got shot.”_

He’s surprised and she winces internally because this was not how she wanted their reunion to go. But this is better than sitting in her dark, bare flat trying to sleep her life away but unable to because of the nightmares that plague her subconscious. She misses her squad, oh how she misses them, but she carries on until Mike drags her to meet a friend who is looking for a flatmate.

She is nowhere near prepared for the genius that is Sherlock Holmes, with his brashness and tendency towards near pathological honesty in his findings and she knows, oh, how she knows that he is hers. Hers, hers alone and she will fight like a starving dog for a bone just to keep him in her life with his beautiful, beautiful deductions and intellect that sends her into a tailspin of genuine attraction. She could almost call it true love at first deduction, which it was, essentially, but it would be better described as true love at first Sherlock because Sherlock is his deductions and his deductions are him.

She loves him from that first meeting, that first dabble into the unexplored world of genuine perception of reality, but she knows, deep, deep inside of her that it will only end in heart break for her. Because it is always her, always her heart that is broken. She is a rusty, beaten up toy in the prime of her life and she knows one flick of knowledgeable fingers in the right places in her heart and soul will destroy her utterly and completely.

But she’s willing to take a chance on Sherlock because you never know what you are missing until you try it, or however the old saying goes. 


End file.
